You live near a major university and a community college. There are smart people that come here every week to talk to the general public about interesting topics. Perhaps you were not aware of this fact, or were overwhelmed by the sheer number of opportunities for possible enlightenment. If that’s the case, Smile Politely understands and is here to help. Here are several events going on in town this week. Check out one or more of them if you have time. Get your learn on, as they say, and join the cognoscenti.
If you have a community event, speaker, or film event that you’d like to see featured on Listen Up!, send the event information to joelgillespie [at] smilepolitely [dot] com by Friday the week prior to the event. Listen Up! runs on Mondays.
WHAT: “Education is Important But…: A Pilot Study of Low Income Kurdish Mothers Attitudes and Decisions about Their Childrens Education” by Ozge Sensoy, School of Social Work
WHEN: Tuesday, September 22 @ 12 noon
WHERE: Lucy Ellis Lounge, room 1080, Foreign Language Building
WHAT: “Envisioning Catastrophic Climate Change” by Dr. Spencer R. Weart
WHEN: Thursday, September 24 @ 7 p.m.
WHERE: 3rd Floor, Levis Faculty Center, 919 W. Illinois, Urbana
Dr. Weart recently retired from the American Institute of Physics, where he had worked since 1971. He’s the author of several books, including The Discovery of Global Warming.
So, if life’s troubles aren’t getting you down quite enough, head on over to Levis on Thursday and hear some doom-and-gloom that you likely can do nothing about. Party!
WHAT: Brian Tokar, Unit One/Allen Hall Guest-in-Residence
WHEN: Sunday, September 27 @ 7 p.m.
WHERE: South rec room of Allen Hall, 1005 W. Gregory, Urbana
Allen Hall brings another well-regarded speaker for their guest-in-residence program. From the announcement:
“Brian Tokar is acclaimed as a passionate advocate of grassroots action for global justice and an ecological future. He has been an activist, author, and prominent voice on environmental issues since the 1970s. He is the author of The Green Alternative and Earth for Sale, the editor of two books on the politics of biotechnology, Redesigning Life? and Gene Traders, and the co-editor of the forthcoming collection, Crisis in Food and Agriculture: Conflict, Resistance and Renewal. Tokar’s articles on environmental issues, emerging ecological movements, global warming, and genetic engineering appear regularly in Z Magazine, Synthesis/Regeneration, Toward Freedom, Counterpunch.org and many other publications and websites. Tokar holds concurrent degrees from MIT in biology and physics, and a Masters degree in biophysics from Harvard University. He is the Director of Vermont’s Institute for Social Ecology. He has lectured throughout the U.S., as well as internationally, on ecological issues and movements.“